Aleksandr Goncharenko’s study investigates the pre-war period in the Soviet Union, which the author defines rather broadly; in his book, the term “pre-war” embraces the time between the mid-1920s and the late 1930s. According to Goncharenko, this era was largely influenced by so-called “text-centrism,” which is defined as “an obsessive desire to provide any object of the cultural landscape with a verbal equivalent (description, commentary, script, transcript, constitution)” (11). It has long been determined that Russophone culture is largely focused on literature; Goncharenko widens this idea and discusses “literature centrism” (literaturotsentrism) as a particular case of a more universal “text-centrism” (10). Text-centrism affected the whole era of the late 1920s and 30s, but Goncharenko discusses the phenomenon by focusing specifically on the case of cinema.
In Ch. 1, Goncharenko talks about the high status of writers and literature in the USSR. He discusses a then-popular idea about literature being a mentor for the younger cinematic art; literature should improve cinema and help to defeat “formalism.” According to this “text-centered” aesthetics, the most important writers were Maksim Gorʹkii and the deceased Aleksandr Pushkin; they were outdone only by political leaders who were represented as “the best writers” of the time (49).
Chapter 2 investigates the integration of professional writers into film production, which started with the Kino newspaper lead article “Literature—To Cinema,” published in November 1925. Based on various archival sources and periodicals of the time, Goncharenko traces the complex discussions about the role of literature in cinema, screenwriting, and the professional relationship between actors, directors, and screenwriters. He also discusses the “text-centered” methods of bureaucratic Soviet censorship and control over the arts through periodicals.
In Ch. 3, Goncharenko approaches theoretical discussions of cinema and the question of film adaptations, which was widely discussed in the 1920s and especially 30s. He then turns to disputes about different types of screenplays and shows how these debates were summed up by Valentin Turkin’s influential study, Cinema Dramaturgy (1938), which became “the apogee of the literature-centric understanding of cinema” (151). Ch. 4 plays the role of an epilogue to the study. It aims to look at “text-centrism” from the point of view of cinema itself in contrast to film periodicals, censorship institutions, and the official disputes discussed in the previous chapter.
Why was Soviet culture of the time dominated by “text centrism”? Since the book lacks a formal conclusion, it may be challenging to summarize the different factors that Goncharenko points to in his study. However, his main contention probably lies in the book’s title, which is explained in the introduction: “The intonation of text-centrism in the sphere of culture and, in particular, in film criticism was as militaristic as any speech practices in the USSR of that time, and the articulators of text-centrism recognized the time itself as being one of pre-war” (21). The accelerated text-centrism of the 1920s and 30s was, therefore, caused by political reasons. In my view, to talk about Stalinist politics as the main factor of its culture means to simplify the complex question of these connections. In her influential 2017 study Not According to Plan: Filmmaking under Stalin, Maria Belodubrovskaya has already shown that a number of Soviet film directors created their masterpieces despite the state’s control over the industry. I think the same may be said about the best Soviet film critics, such as Vladimir Nedobrovo and Boris Kolomarov, who are unfortunately not mentioned in the book.
One may wonder why nearly all text-centered tendencies in the cinema of the 1920s and 30s may be easily traced to the 1910s when the political situation was very different, while film criticism experienced little to no state control. Just as in the early Soviet period, most discussions around the new medium in the 1910s focused on the relationship between cinema and literature; there was a huge campaign for recruiting professional writers in cinema; critics were reflecting on different adaptation methods while trade journals were publishing screenplays.
Many cinematographers discussed in the study started their careers in the 1910s. For example, Valentin Turkin played a significant role at the Khanzhonkov film studio. In his canonical Cinema Dramaturgy, cited extensively in Goncharenko’s book (150–51), he speaks of the literary nature of cinema in exactly the same terms that he and his uncle Nikandr Turkin used when they wrote for the journal Pegas (1915–17), which promoted the idea of literary cinema and published screenplays. If accelerated “text centrism” may be traced in both pre-revolutionary and early Soviet film traditions, it probably should not be linked specifically to the pre-war Soviet Union or explained through political factors.
The book concludes with a reference to Sergei Gerasimov’s film The Teacher (1939): “The main character praises the villagers, since among them was a glorious hero of the Civil War, Brigade Commander Ivan Kutiakov…. But by the time the film premiered on December 10, 1939, Kutiakov had already been shot a year and a half ago in a case against the Red Army High Command. One can only guess why his mention was not cut from the film” (207). This might indeed be a great puzzle, since under no circumstances could so-called enemies of the people be mentioned favorably in a 1930s Soviet film. However, the key to this mystery is very simple; in the film, instead of the real Ivan Kutiakov, a fictional character, Konstantin Khudiakov, is mentioned.
Nevertheless, Aleksandr Goncharenko’s book is a welcome addition to Soviet cinema studies. It points to many new facts and refers to archival sources, some of which to my knowledge have never been investigated by film scholars. I find the numerous references to papers from the Manuscript Collection of the Institute of World Literature in Moscow (IMLI) especially helpful since they will undoubtedly stimulate other film scholars’ interest in this unique archive.
